White Blank Page
by skybound2
Summary: Sam muses over the changes that have occurred to him since his return. This is a character introspective piece with vague, but present, spoilers for all of Season 6.


**Title: **White Blank Page  
**Rating:** PG (or K+)  
**Word Count: **~1400  
**Characters:** Sam, with references to Dean and Castiel.  
**Spoiler Warnings: **Vague, but present, spoilers for all of Season 6.  
**Summary:** Sam muses over the changes that have occurred to him since his return.  
**Disclaimers: **Playing in Wonderland's universe. Title borrowed from the _Mumford & Sons_ song of the same name.  
**Author's Notes:** Apparently, if you are interested in writing for a fandom that you haven't managed to write anything for in three years, you just need to work on a NaNo novel. Because then your brain will do whatever it needs to do to avoid having to think about your novel, including letting your fanfic muse out of it's cage.

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**White Blank Page**

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Sam has drunk precisely three cups of coffee since his body was yanked from the cage. The first he had the morning after his return. Samuel had bought them both a cup, and Sam had drunk it without much thought. But the taste was all wrong, bland where it should have been bitter. He'd chalked it up to being a bad brew, and went on about his day.

He tried again two days later. They were settled in a greasy spoon of a diner – eating eggs and steak that were barely a step up from cardboard in the quality department – and his brain told him that the coffee _must_be good, because the scent of it wafting from the kitchen tickled his nostrils with the memory of mornings just like it, and cinnamon was always a good addition to the dark drink.

But again, it settled in his stomach warm and flavorless; an appropriate counterpoint to the food.

The last time was three weeks after his return. They'd just taken down a family of ghouls, and the team was sucking the stuff down like engine fuel, returning them from the brink of unconsciousness just enough to allow them to tend to their wounds.

It did absolutely nothing for Sam.

When he didn't sleep that month, or the month after, he decided that coffee was pointless anyway. He didn't need it to stay awake, or alert (his body was doing that for him just fine on its own) and it wasn't like it had any taste for him to savor. And while every meal has been on par in terms of flavor as the one at that diner, he has discovered that his mind begins to lose focus, his clarity suffers, if he doesn't eat. So he keeps up that basic activity, but he gets no joy out of it, not that he cares.

His entire existence is like that now. Lacking flavor. It's like he's observing the world through eyes that aren't his own. Everything is as bright and crisp as a high-definition television show, but the camera work is a little shoddy, and the characterization leaves something to be desired. It's all…mediocre.

Something is missing, but he can't define it. Especially now with Dean's return to the fold, all the same parts are there as before, plus a few extra – yet it doesn't make a difference.

If he were to try and explain it, the best he could come up with is…open. He's open inside. The spaces that use to be filled up with uncertainty, concern, hesitation…they are all empty, and nothing seems to fill them up. He can dump and dump and dump, but it all just falls out the other side.

He's a blank slate, and no amount of scratching at the surface leaves a mark.

Objectively, he knows that it should feel wrong. But it doesn't. It doesn't _feel_like anything.

And that's the problem.

He has memories, memories of emotions so bright as to be blinding. He can recall the way his stomach would pitch and roll when a demon was barreling down on him, murder in its eyes; or when Jess's plump lips would curve in that secret smile she held just for him. That thin line between fear and adrenaline, and hope and euphoria, so vague as to be non-existent.

He can dredge up the acidic taste of frustration that plagued him most of his life; frustration because his life wasn't his own. A sensation that use to swamp his spirits, and make him lash out at whoever was closest. Which was usually Dean, but was sometimes their father, or Bobby, or an asshole at school.

And laced through it all, through every memory, is loss. Covering everything in a blanket thicker than the smoke that choked his lungs the night Jess died. Loss of his mother. Of his childhood. Of his innocence. Of his love. Of his father. Of his control. Of Dean.

Loss. Loss loss loss loss _losslossloss_.

And try as he might, he can't convince himself that he wants to get that back. He thinks that it would be worth it, sacrificing the few good things (the kind of happiness that would swell in him at the sound of Jess's full-throated laugh, or the pride that use to suffuse him when he was young and still training, and Dean would smile and tell him 'good shot') in exchange for never having to deal with the shit ones again. The prickly fingers of fear that once surrounded his daily life have been severed at the knuckle, and he is lighter for their absence.

He doesn't even miss the coffee.

So it's a farce when he pleads with Dean. Tells him that he needs help. He doesn't, he thinks. But he knows that he _should._And he knows that the emotion on Dean's face when he looks at him now, really _looks_at him, should make him feel cold, and dead, and lost. And that is why he says it. Why he offers himself up, allows himself to be beaten bloody. Because Dean needs to hear it, and Dean needs to express it, and it doesn't take anything out of Sam to let him have it. He remembers enough to know that he use to care about the things that Dean felt.

But the truth is he can't anymore. He is encased in a hard outer shell, with nothing remotely life-like on the inside. And it all just seems like a useless burden. Emotions. He knows them all, has _felt_them all at some point, and he knows what the appropriate stimuli for each is, and the appropriate response. He thought he was doing a decent job of miming his way through, but now he knows better. Knows that what he is missing has been obvious to everyone, despite his best efforts.

So when Castiel buries his fist beneath Sam's flesh and bone, and plunges deep into the spaces that Sam knows are open – wide, gaping chasms where parts of him use to be – he knows what the angel is going to find. Or rather, what he won't. And that should scare Sam.

But it doesn't.

It does scare Dean though. That much is obvious in his brother's hollow-eyed stare. There is a flicker within Sam at that moment. Like a bulb dangling from a wire in a dimly lit room, casting shadows against the walls and adding just a bit of depth to an otherwise two-dimensional space. And he clings to it. Clings as best he can, which isn't saying a whole lot.

He needs to believe that it'll be enough though. Enough to allow him to remain on a path that will keep that look of disappointment mixed with fear away from Dean. Keep his brother from giving up on him. Because he knows that was, is, _should be_ important to him.

And Sam thinks that he has a better grasp on things now. That he'll be able to pantomime a bit better, now that it is all out in the open. For at least as long as it takes for them to shuffle his soul out of the cage, and shove it back inside where they tell him it belongs.

He can't feel the kind of desperate need that Dean does at its absence. Can't make himself truly _want_ it back. But he can pretend. He thinks he can pretend. And he can help them look, and stand still long enough for them to stitch it back onto him, like Peter and his shadow. He can do that much.

And if he wonders, in the privacy of his own mind, if it will no longer fit within him – if he has either grown too big, or if it has shrunk too small – well, he keeps those thoughts to himself.

It's not like it'll make a difference. They'll still want it back, even if it is shriveled up and charred from its time in the pit.

Even if giving it back to him means that he'll roast from the inside out, and be left a blubbering fool. He thinks there is a good chance that'll happen. That he'll be incapacitated by the sudden influx of emotions. That all that will be left of him is a twitching mass of flesh and blood and tears and pain. But he isn't worried.

How can he be?

He doubts they'd want to hear any of that though. So he keeps his mouth shut and thinks that if nothing else, when they're done, maybe he'll be able to taste coffee again.

~End


End file.
